How long have you worked in development and how did it lead to what you do now?

I've worked in development since I left university in 1982. I worked for VSO for a couple of years before moving to WaterAid. I'm a chartered engineer by training and my career's always had engineering and technology running through it. I also did a masters in anthropology and development at Soas [the School of Oriental and African Studies], which gave me much more insight into social issues. I wanted to try and balance that with my technology side.

What does your day-to-day activity at PA involve?

It could be having to manage senior managers, going over programmatic plans, what impact we're having, looking at national scale and financial probity, risk registers or the state of our income. There's a whole range across my desk.

What makes a good development leader?

You have to know your business and it helps to have practical experience in the field over a number of years, not just in management. There are a range of functions within a charity such as fundraising, policy and advocacy. To run a charity you have to be interested and able to understand all these other elements.

Engineering ones catch my eye – projects that are so simple and yet elegant. Energy is core part of development and underlines any movement. My favourites would be micro-hydro projects in Nepal, Peru and Bolivia – that transformation when people are wired up to electricity.

Another favourite is the gravity ropeway. It operates like two ski lifts with two pallets, one with a heavier weight at the top, which pulls up the other with the lighter weight at the bottom. In Nepal, people can walk several hours or days carrying fertiliser and other goods, as heavy as 50kg. The lift can carry those goods, is easy to make and not very difficult to maintain. It impacts drudgery and can be managed locally.

How do you manage a global team of 12 directors, including seven country/regional directors?

We work across 11 countries and the key is good relationships. In any devolved organisation there are three rules: clarity around devolution and responsibilities – what can regional directors do on their own and what the group needs to do together. You also need trust and understanding and good communications, so we meet face-to-face once or twice a year and also talk virtually. We need to make sure that we're using the best of our knowledge across the organisation.

How much does your organisation's culture influence regional offices?

We have an organisational set of values that we expect all offices to sign up to. Even in large companies with strong corporate cultures, such as Shell and IBM, you can't override national culture. All but one of our regional directors are from the countries they are working in. We value that and we value the diversity it brings.

What is your vision for your organisation?

Access to technology is absolutely fundamental and precedes all major historical jumps like the industrial revolution and the communications revolution we are seeing now. Our mission is to get more people access. As an organisation, we decided to focus on four sectors – energy, water and sanitation, food security and disaster and emergencies. We're particularly interested in creating levers using our projects and work on the ground to create larger-scale change, so we're building relationships with other networks and organisations.

We're also a knowledge broker – we run a service called practical answers, which handles technical enquiries from far beyond where we have programmes, and we have a subsidiary that takes what we have learnt and uses it more widely. We're interested in continuing this work.

What's future of development?

Practical Action impacts some 1 million lives a year through food security projects and others, which is a tiny fraction of those in need – unless we find levers and use that leverage to enable large-scale change. National capabilities change over time. In some parts of south Asia, for example, local civil society is very strong and in some parts of east Africa it isn't. The job of northern NGOs is to manage according to those individual and changing needs.

One would hope in the long run that an operational role would decline, but that roles as knowledge brokers continue. And it's not just northern NGOs – southern NGOs are growing. Brac in Bangladesh, for example, is becoming international. The landscape in 20 years will be quite different to now.

What do you still want to achieve as head of PA?

I've been with the organisation for almost 10 years. We're at the start of a new strategy looking at our growth goals, tracking the impact on the ground. There are a lot of challenges still – that won't end – but I want to spend the next two to three years getting progress up and running.

What is your greatest achievement?

My association with this organisation, of which I'm very proud. We've made memorable strides and weathered big storms. We're growing significantly. It's not just another NGO – it has such a historical and philosophical purpose. Our founder, EF Schumacher, was one of the earliest environmentalists. His work in the early 60s on economics and the importance of technology still holds true to this day. You can very easily see Practical Action's contribution to the world and how it is making it a better place.

Who is your development hero?

Schumacher inspired me when I was an undergraduate in the 70s. I've come back full circle. He also crosses the divide between development and environment, which is a tricky thing to do. Climate change means the chance to bridge the gap is better than historically it has been.

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